Keith Law has released his top 10 prospects for the Pittsburgh Pirates system today. The list can be seen here by ESPN Insider subscribers.
Law has the usual six players at the top, with Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon at the top of the list. He’s got Alen Hanson, Gregory Polanco, and Luis Heredia as the next three, which is the same order from his top 100 rankings. Josh Bell came in at sixth on the list.
The number seven spot is where rankings usually start to change. Law has a few surprising names in his 7-10 rankings. Number seven is Barrett Barnes, which is the same spot as our rankings. The eighth spot went to Nick Kingham. Law called him a sleeper, and said he has the potential to be a number three starter. I agree, although we had him rated slightly lower at tenth.
Wyatt Mathisen was number nine, which is the highest I’ve seen Mathisen in any rankings this year. The final player on the list is Clay Holmes at number ten.
Law does have a short farm system overview for each team, and in the write-up he notes that the Pirates would have probably snuck into the top five in the farm system rankings if they would have taken David Dahl instead of drafting Mark Appel without signing him. I still think Appel was the right choice, even though in hindsight Dahl would have produced the better outcome.
